


He Sees You

by Distractivate



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Future Fic, Husbands, Identity, Introspection, Just ask David, M/M, Marriage Feelings, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Patrick looks good in glasses, Porn with Feelings, Queer Feelings, Self-Discovery, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:28:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22282621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Distractivate/pseuds/Distractivate
Summary: “Do you wear a lot of blue?” she asks. Cindy, her name tag says.She hands Patrick a pair of dark gray wire-frame glasses which he slides on until they hook behind his ears. And it’s not like—well everyone who knows him knows he likes blue. But he feels a little unsettled that this stranger picks up on it, like at she can see his whole life contained within the frames around his eyes.“Uh, yeah. I guess so,” Patrick says, taking them off again. This pair, like all the others she has given him, is exactly right and completely wrong.Or, Patrick gets glasses and thinks about identity. David helps.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 273
Kudos: 1009





	He Sees You

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to Pants, who makes every fic they beta better whilst removing typos, to Likerealpeopledo who dealt with my neuroses from first awful draft to posted version, and thingswithwings for reading a draft, offering lots of encouragement, and asking a lot of really helpful questions.

“Do you wear a lot of blue?” she asks. Cindy, her name tag says. 

She hands Patrick a pair of dark gray wire-frame glasses which he slides on until they hook behind his ears. And it’s not like—well everyone who knows him knows he likes blue. But he feels a little unsettled that this stranger picks up on it, like she can see his whole life contained within the frames around his eyes.

“Uh, yeah. I guess so,” Patrick says, taking them off again. This pair, like all the others she has given him, is exactly right and completely wrong. 

Patrick feels a little bad using up her time like this since he is probably going to go home and order something for half the price from one of those online home try-on companies. But maybe he’s hoping he’ll find something here he wouldn’t have thought to pick for himself. Or that Cindy will, at least. 

“I liked the shape of those. That sort of tapered square sits very nicely on your face,” she says. 

“Those were okay,” he hedges.

She slides them over to the established ‘maybe’ pile, which has five pairs in it so far.

“Let me make another round and see if I can find some others.”

While she makes a slow lap between the internally lit displays, Patrick watches the exchange at the small desk behind him reflected in the large oval mirror he’s been using to assess each pair of glasses. 

The sales associate at that desk is wearing a matching pant-vest combination with a pale pink shirt. His sleeves are rolled up, exposing a series of tattoos ringing his wrist. Each ear has a thin silver hoop that matches his brushed silver wire-frames forming small circles in front of his eyes. His hair is marbled white and gray and black and styled kind of like David’s, rising high off his forehead. 

He’s strikingly handsome.

Patrick is aware that he is drawn to people who break rules with how they present themselves, rules that he still ruthlessly follows. Knowing the reason doesn’t diminish this feeling, a sharp zap of current along his spine when he thinks something like that, open and uncomplicated and free. God he loves being gay.

In the mirror, Patrick sees his own small smile creep across his lips as he watches the associate engage. He’s good at his job too, it seems. Or maybe it’s just that his customer has a better idea of what she wants. She chatters away about each pair of glasses he offers, a giggle bubbling up out of every sentence. He laughs with her, a low, soft sound, and nods along with each assessment. And even though Patrick can see the associate’s effort, the way he nudges his customer subtly toward the frame that looks the best on her, he also seems to be enjoying himself. 

Unlike Cindy, who is stuck with Patrick. 

She sits down with a barely muffled, “Mmphm,” and four more frames, all that shape she said looks good, two black, another dark gray but plastic, and one that is almost navy. He tries them on, one after another, and discards two each into the ‘maybe’ and ‘no’ piles. 

“Well, we have a good selection of possibilities here,” Cindy says, sliding the tray of ‘maybes’ in between them. “Let’s try these on again and see what you think.”

Patrick owns a store. He can appreciate the effort it takes to help a customer put their finger on the right product, to send them home feeling satisfied, to earn their future business. So he tries to be patient with her slow winnowing process until they are down to two. 

He tries one on. Then the other. Then the first one. They are both the same color, the same shape, just a different material. 

“They both look great,” she says nervously, which tells him he is not doing a good job controlling the volume of his facial expressions. “It’s really whether you think the plastic or the metal will be more comfortable.” 

He tries the metal one on again.

“Or, if you’d like I can hold them. Maybe your wife would like to see them both?”

“Uh. We—He—My husband and I own a store.” Patrick manages to get it out. “It’s hard for us both to get away during business hours.”

“Oh, I’m so—"

“It’s okay.” Patrick waves his hand back and forth, a gesture he’s picked up from David. He’s . . . he’s used to it.

“No. I shouldn’t have assumed.” She looks like she feels just awful, and he feels bad for her. And it’s not fair, a little part of him says, that now he’s supposed to make her feel better.

“Anyway, that’s a good idea, coming back with him. He’s better at this than me.”

“Okay,” she says, and clearly she still feels her foot lodged in her throat. “I’ll save these two and you can bring him by.”

“I’m—That’s not necessary. Trust me, he’ll want to start over.” Patrick doesn’t bother to hide what his face does, thinking of the way David would approach something like this, letting Cindy trail behind him as his opinions splash across the store in his wake. The store is drab and small, not that the size of the store matters. David Rose has learned how to claim his space in the world, no matter the size or condition that space is in when he finds it.

She smiles at Patrick’s smile and nods. And then she does the thing again, where she sees his whole life.

“Sounds like your husband is the perfect person to have along for something like this.”

* * *

Patrick returns to the store a few minutes before closing. David is engaged with a customer by the back wall, walking them through the different scents in Rose Apothecary’s aromatherapy line. David smiles at Patrick before returning to the sale, and that smile does a lot to recombobulate him after the failed errand to Elmdale Optix. 

Patrick notices wine and cheese are already packaged in a tote on the counter as he walks into the back, so David is probably extending the sale. The thought keeps a smile on his face as he starts processing the web orders. Patrick is a good salesperson, but for him it’s a learned skill. When a customer comes in for hand cream, Patrick can usually get them to try the body lotion or the foot cream too. David is on another level entirely. If someone stops in to ask him for directions, they’ll leave with an item from every shelf on the far wall.

By the time David comes in the back, carrying the balanced drawer, Patrick is tucking a handwritten thank-you note into the last online order and sealing the box. The thank-you notes were Patrick’s idea. He suggested they write on the packing slips as a personal touch to set them apart from anonymous distributors. David turned it up a notch, designing simple notecards with the RA logo on thick, soft paper so they wouldn’t get lost in the packaging. The notes always remind Patrick that they work best when they work together.

Which is why he should ask David to help him pick out some frames online. But he wants to make this decision on his own, even though he can’t quite figure out why. He just feels like if he tries on a pair of glasses in David’s presence, he’ll be looking at David’s reaction before he even bothers with his own.

David gives Patrick a long kiss hello, his familiar smile curving against Patrick’s lips. Patrick lingers there, just to feel the flutter of David’s fingers up the backs of his arms and the breadth of him, large enough to fold him close. “How’d it go at the eye doctor?”

“Got a prescription for glasses. Said it should help the headaches I’ve been having. I figured I would do one of those home try-on things online.”

“Well, I for one am very excited about this development. We can get the laptop out tonight and go shopping.” David does one of his suggestive shoulder shimmies, the kind that means he knows he’s about to out-fun Patrick at something.

Patrick is grateful he can watch his hands apply the shipping label to the box in front of him instead of watching David’s face react to what he’s about to say. “Oh, that’s okay. I’ll probably just pick something on my own. I don’t want to take up your time.”

David sees right through every part of that.

“You’re not taking my time.” David waits for Patrick to look at him before he continues. “Should I be . . . worried? That you don’t want my help?” 

“What? No.” He watches David put the bagged deposit in the safe, his shoulders tense.

“Okaaay.” David is still not convinced. 

Patrick feels awful because he can see how hard David is trying to understand and he wants so badly to be able to explain. To reassure him.

“It’s not—None of this is about you.” 

“Patrick.” Patrick braces for the sentence he can hear David’s his exhale before he says it. “I think it’s a little bit about me.”

“If anything, it’s about me,” Patrick tries. David’s eyebrows are highly skeptical about that. 

“Imagine you were married to Nate Berkus and you refused to let him redecorate your—”

“You sure you want me to imagine I’m married to Nate Berkus?” Patrick goes to file the day’s receipts with a smirk. He notices that David did manage to add a basil and wild orange diffuser and a set of room and linen sprays to the last sale of the day, doubling the price. Which is . . . part of what he’s worried about, he realizes. 

“No. Trust me. You did much better than Nate Berkus here.” David gestures at himself, clad shoulders-to-knees in a black tunic with thirty buttons down the front—Patrick counted the last time he undid them.

“David, it’s just that . . . you’re an incredible salesman, okay? And you’ll have opinions. And I love your opinions. But I want—I don’t want to be sold, you know? And even if you tried not to I feel like I’d be . . . listening anyway? I don’t know how to explain it.”

David nods slowly and tips his head like maybe, just maybe he understands. “Well, a wise person once told me you don’t have to be able to explain feelings for them to be worth listening to.”

“I told you that. Does that make me the wise person?”

“Mmhmm.” David kisses him, lips soft and warm. “But don’t tell my husband because he can be insufferably smug about things like this.”

“I understand,” Patrick says gravely. “My husband is the same way.”

* * *

Patrick clicks around on the website until he fills his cart for the home try-on program. Four of the pairs of glasses are similar to the ones he tried on that Cindy said looked best. He doesn’t find a fifth he really likes, so on a whim he adds a pair of silver frames with circular lenses like the other associate at Elmdale Optix was wearing. Just to try them. 

David won't be home until late on the day the box arrives; he’s working a candle-making event with one of their vendors at the store. So Patrick tries them on alone in front of the large mirror in the bathroom. The square ones are nice enough—Cindy was probably right about the shape—but Patrick sort of wishes he had ordered a few different styles. He tries on the round silver frames last.

The person blinking back at him is not Patrick. Between the too-round shape and his hair that’s past-due for a cut, he looks like a Harry Potter cosplay attempt gone wrong. It’s not a great look. But he’s . . . It’s different. And it feels . . . something. To make such a quick and impermanent change and to look so very different. To look at himself differently. 

He leaves them on—he’s not even sure why—as he reheats last night’s caprese chicken and sits down to eat it on the screen porch.

When they decided to buy a house, there were a few must-haves on both sides. Patrick wanted a fireplace and to be within easy walking distance of the store so that they wouldn’t need a second car. David insisted on a bathroom with two sinks and a good-sized shower. The screened-in porch on the house they chose wasn’t part of their list, but now Patrick can’t imagine not having it; it’s the perfect compromise between Patrick’s love of the outdoors and David’s fear of winged insects. They spend almost all of their free time between the small table in one corner of the porch and the couch in the other. 

Without David, the house seems too quiet. On the porch though, the background noises from their neighborhood help fill the emptiness. When David comes home after a night apart Patrick can almost feel life click back into place like the last few turns of a Rubik’s cube that complete each side without losing the full range of colors in the process. But tonight, he feels like he keeps turning and turning, getting more and more jumbled as he tries to figure out why he’s feeling off.

He almost forgets he is still wearing the silver frames until he goes to the bathroom after dinner and catches sight of himself in the mirror while he washes his hands. He folds them up carefully and puts them back in the box and pulls out the ones he thinks are the best of the five, a pair of narrow plastic frames in a slate bluish-gray. He slides them on, contemplating his new look.

He doesn’t look like himself with the glasses on, but the more he takes them on and off, the less he recognizes himself without the glasses either. Every time he tries to focus on what he wants, it gets blurrier. 

He’s probably overthinking this. He presses his palms into the countertop and leans closer to inspect them. Yeah. These are fine. So what if they’re predictable? They’re blue. He likes blue. They’re fine.

He wears a lot of blue. He hears Cindy ask it and he hears her ask if his wife would like to help make a final selection and he hears her apologize profusely and he hears himself tell her it’s fine, because people make that mistake all the time when he’s not standing next to his husband. Hell, the first wedding venue they toured, the event planner thought he was marrying Stevie. They’d all laughed about it later at the barbecue. But for some reason Cindy’s question has scratched its way under his skin and he doesn’t like it.

But what else was he supposed to say? He doesn’t want to be a jerk about it.

He takes the glasses off so he can rub his face into his hands, tries to rub her voice out of his head. When he looks back up at himself in the mirror, he’s back to the look he’s had for years. The same as when he tried to make it work with Rachel. The same as when he had his first date with David that very nearly wasn’t a date because he didn’t realize it could just be like any other first date. Because he hoped it would be so much more than that. He wants—He just wants to not look like that person anymore.

He’s been in a relationship with David for more than three years now. He’s almost never said the words, “I’m gay.” In town, with their vendors, he’s just the Patrick-half of Patrick and David. That’s his favorite label really. All anyone needs to know. But being gay means something to him and he wants . . . sometimes he wishes people could tell. Not just that he’s gay exactly. Or maybe it is that. Maybe it’s exactly that. 

He sighs and he puts the pair of silver wire-frames back on before going back to the porch to check the Blue Jays score.

Which is how David finds him still wearing them two hours later, asleep on the couch with his phone dangling from his hand.

“Oh my god.” David’s voice startles him awake. 

“Mm, hey,” Patrick says, fumbling for David’s waist with sleep-limp arms and trying to pull him onto the couch.

“You’re wearing—What are you wearing? Are these the glasses you picked?”

“Oh yeah. I mean no. Not these.” Patrick takes the glasses off and sets them on the table in front of the couch. He tries again to pull David in and this time he comes, settling in to Patrick’s lap with a closely-held grin and letting Patrick kiss him hello. 

“So is this a scene and I missed the memo?” David asks. “Am I supposed to be the Marquis de Lafayette to your Ben Franklin or something?”

“Hm,” Patrick offers a low chuckle. “Those do look like his glasses, I guess. You know he thought taking air baths by an open window could ward off illness? You could stumble upon me sitting naked in our solarium here, airing out my skin.”

”Mmm, and would I be naked as well?”

“Not at first but I would convince you with my eighteenth-century medical facts.”

“Yes I can see it. You’ll talk of tourniquets and the clothes will fall right off.”

“Tourniquets could be fun. I was thinking I would present my anecdotal evidence that nudity is good for you.” Patrick scratches fondly under David’s sweater as he says it, muscle memory taking his hands to the spot on David’s back that makes him lean into it, catlike. 

“I can’t say this is a scene that was high on my list but it’s trending upwards.”

“Good. I’ll start the research phase and in the meantime you can tell me more about how you’d like me to use the tourniquet.”

“I know what you’re doing,” David says, his teeth scraping against Patrick’s jaw. “And I’m happy to let you do it after you explain where those came from and why.” David tips his head toward the round frames.

Patrick has to kiss him again because every one of the forty-three muscles of David’s face is working to stay neutral here.

“You don’t like them?” Patrick asks, and now he’s fighting forty-three of his own muscles too. 

“They’re, um,” David bites his lips between his teeth and takes a deep breath. “I like them if you like them.”

“When you do the home try-on they send five pairs,” Patrick says, smiling and taking advantage of the way David collapses in relief to pull him closer. Patrick feels like he’s spent most of the week thinking about glasses; even though he's no closer to picking them, he’s ready to be done with the topic. He works his fingers farther up David’s back as he takes his mouth again, teasing it open with his tongue until he feels David sink into it. David lets Patrick distract him, cupping his hand around the back of Patrick’s head to pull him closer as they set the world back right-side-up for each other. David tastes like wine from the event at the store and Patrick wants to drink him in and forget about trying to identify the flavor of _off_ he’s been feeling lately.

“Wait, so there are more?” David asks, pulling away suddenly.

“More what?” Patrick asks, still breathing heavily next to him. 

“Glasses. Frames.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Can I see them?” David asks. 

“Uh, sure?” And then, because it’s not supposed to be a question, he adds, “Of course. If you want to see them, you have to get up though.”

David kisses him soundly and stands, pulling him up after and closing his hands on Patrick’s hips from behind, nipping into his neck as they laugh towards the bathroom. Patrick loves the way something like this can still turn frantic and needy if they want it to, or not. It can stay this, just both of them laughing as the joy of being warm and close and home bubbles up between them.

“Should I just try them all on one at a time?” Patrick asks, assuming David will want to pick.

“No. These,” David says. David hands him the pair Patrick was planning to keep.

David has impeccable taste (according to David) so Patrick should feel good about selecting the same pair. But Patrick has also learned that David sometimes picks things for Patrick that he would never actually pick if he thought he had free rein. Most of the time he just picks the best version of whatever he thinks Patrick would pick himself. 

The first time they went shopping to replace a few of Patrick’s worn-out jeans, Patrick expected David to seize the opportunity to suggest something trendier, even if it was just for fun. But he brought back pair after pair of jeans in the middle-range of prices and brands. They were definitely tighter than the pairs they were replacing but they weren’t remarkably different. So Patrick has been wearing the same basic uniform for years, just with nicer fabrics and a slimmer fit and more appropriate shoes.

David is not the most reliable narrator on his past relationships, but Patrick knows about the most recent ones. Stevie. Jake. Sebastien. All sort of ruggedly handsome. Maybe handsome is not the right word for Stevie but . . . the point is none of them are walking around in patterned or brightly-colored pants. Maybe David doesn’t pick things outside of Patrick’s comfort zone because it is David’s comfort zone too. Patrick as Patrick. Patrick as _this_ Patrick.

Patrick puts on the glasses and looks at David in the mirror and tries to smile, feeling even more self-conscious than he did before.

David manages a real smile without even trying and wraps his arms around him from behind, hooking his chin over his shoulder.

“You look good.” His voice purrs low against Patrick’s ear. 

“Thanks.”

“Really good,” David says, squeezing tighter.

“Thanks,” Patrick repeats, more softly. It’s not that he doesn’t trust David, it’s just that—

“So fucking good,” David says. The raw hum of David’s lower register moves through Patrick like a pulsing base line. He can feel the buzz of it in his bones. David’s hand finds its way under Patrick’s sweater as his teeth find their way along Patrick’s neck. Patrick turns in his arms and lets David do the distracting this time. 

David deepens the kiss, his mouth hot and searching. As he turns his head, the glasses catch on his brow, tilting sideways. “I guess that’s going to take a little getting used to,” he laughs, adjusting deftly so he is kissing Patrick again with barely enough space to get the words out in between.

But Patrick isn’t to the ‘getting used to’ part of this yet, so he takes off the glasses and leaves them on the counter with a mumbled, “Not mine yet,” and returns to David, walking backwards and kissing him as they find their way into bed. And there, naked and twisted together with David deep inside him, murmuring and groaning and gasping Patrick’s name, he has no doubts about exactly who he is.

* * *

Lazy Monday mornings started organically. Patrick used to take advantage of the one day each week the store is closed to rapidly knock things off his to-do list. But about a month ago, David turned off his alarm and pressed a hand low on Patrick’s back, pressed his mouth hot and baiting against Patrick’s chest, and convinced him to stay in bed for another hour, then for the morning, then for the day. Ever since, they’ve been letting Mondays start slowly. Patrick loves that while the rest of the world makes an abrupt entrance to the week with their morning alarms, he and David can work into Monday morning slowly with their hands, with their mouths, with their tongues. 

On this particular Monday, his body has another plan, the pounding in his head an incessant chant to stay horizontal and buried in their bed. 

“Honey,” David murmurs. The mattress shifts as he perches on the edge inside the curl of Patrick’s body. Patrick hears the dull thud of the water glass on the nightstand and feels David’s warm hand close around the nape of his neck. His thumb and forefinger massage small circles along his hairline below his ears and the pain relaxes enough for him to take the aspirin out of David’s hand and twist his head enough to drink them down without spilling.

“Thanks,” Patrick says, collapsing back on the pillow. David has pulled all the shades so it’s dark in their room, but there is enough light to see the dip of worry on his forehead. 

“Is it—Did I miss how bad it’s gotten?” David asks, his hands shifting to massage above Patrick’s temples as he rolls onto his back. Patrick closes his eyes again, falling gratefully into the welcoming blackness.

“It’s never been this bad,” Patrick mumbles.

“Okay.” Even with his eyes closed, Patrick can hear David’s look, eyebrows disapproving and lips pursed to keep in whatever he’s not saying. Which means Patrick must look pretty ragged. 

Patrick wants to reach up and thank him or reassure him. Something. But his body is heavy and tingling, like all the nerve connections have been severed by the pressure at the base of his neck. So all he can do is lie there and wait for the pain medication to take effect.

David stands, and at first Patrick thinks he’s leaving. But then there’s a short burst of chilly air against his back until David closes the covers around them both. “I’ll be here if you need me,” he says as he nuzzles into Patrick’s neck. Patrick drifts back to sleep with the blissfully intrusive presence of his husband closing in around him, hand splayed on his chest, breath warm across his shoulder as he kisses it. 

When he wakes up, Patrick’s head feels like he spent a week wearing a too-tight hat, but the pain is mostly gone. David is gone too, although Patrick can hear his off-key singing in the shower. Patrick recognizes the chorus of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.”

“ _9 to 5, yeah they got you where they want you. There’s a better life, and you dream about it don’t you?_ ” David belts, extending his warbling to comedic levels on the “you.” Patrick has to muffle his laugh with his hands. Sometimes it just feels good just to hold it close, this feeling of how very in love he is with David Rose.

If he’s still in the singing phase of the shower, there’s probably enough left for Patrick to join him. He makes a cursory brush of his teeth to clear the morning breath and pokes his head in. “Are we doing Aretha next?” 

“Sure. You want the harmony?” David’s eyes are pools of challenge and laughter and maybe a little embarrassment and floating on the surface of all of that, love, and Patrick wants to bathe in them forever. He’s glad there is still plenty of Monday left to enjoy him.

“It might be hard to harmonize in whatever key this is.” Patrick grins and dips his head under the spray to kiss him, cutting off his retort. 

Patrick reaches over David’s shoulder for the RA shampoo they share and puts a dollop in his hand.

“Your hair’s getting long,” David says, swiping up the shampoo out of Patrick’s palm and working it in around the crown of his head. It’s not that long, but definitely longer than David has ever seen it.

“Yeah. Janine’s on maternity leave for four more months. I might have to try the place you go.”

“You should,” David says. “I floated the idea of selling a few of our grooming products there. Maybe you could go and seal the deal.”

“Maybe. . . mmmm,” Patrick groans into the pressure of David’s fingers making circles into his scalp. It’s not new; David’s done this before. Not often—their routine doesn’t overlap much most days—and probably not as often as he’d like to. David’s mouth is curved in a soft smile as he watches his fingers comb through Patrick’s hair. 

David has been caring for people his whole life, whether he wanted to or not. So normally, Patrick likes to be someone David can depend on, not someone he has to care for. This morning’s headache seems to have put David into caring mode, though, and even though he’s feeling better, Patrick can’t say he minds it. David seems to be enjoying it too. And it feels good. It feels so good. 

David makes scrunching motions with his sudsy fingers in front of Patrick’s face to indicate he’s done. 

But Patrick just smiles at him and starts singing. “ _There’s a hero, if you look inside your heart, you don’t have to be—_ ”

“Mmm no. What did I say about singing Mariah ironically?”

Patrick just keeps singing, loud enough that it reverberates against the mint-green tile that came with their house. He promised David they could remodel the bathroom in another year if business stays good, but he’s going to work a few memories into these green tile walls first. 

They both laugh as David pushes Patrick’s head back under the spray to rinse out the shampoo and drown out the singing. Patrick belts out the chorus as he works the shampoo out of his hair, the lyrics of the song garbled under the water. He emerges from under the spray to find David has left the shower, no doubt to punish him for irreverent renditions of songs by his first true love. 

Patrick finishes the song anyway while he soaps up and rinses off—“Hero” sounds good in the shower even if he doesn’t have Mariah’s range. When he’s finished, he pushes back the curtain to see David mid-body milk application, watching him with a soft smile.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” David says.

“Thanks to you.” David’s answering smile says he’ll reluctantly take the credit. He does one of his shy eye rolls as he turns his attention back to applying the body milk over his arm. 

“So did you always use body milk before?” Patrick asks, and the question surprises David as much as it does Patrick. Patrick has seen David do this so many times, but he feels like something has shifted as the recent headaches have forced him to accept his husband’s help more than he might have liked. He wants to share these things with David in ways that are not just about David.

David switches to the other arm and looks at Patrick thoughtfully. “I’ve always had a full moisturizing routine, but I used different products before. This was kind of a workaround but actually I think it’s just as good. Haven’t aged a day,” he says with a self-deprecating grin. 

Patrick is supposed to laugh but he’s just watching the product film over his husband’s skin before it soaks in and thinking . . . about sex—it’s hard not to when David is naked in front of him—but also about care. About how David doesn’t just care for Patrick like he cares for other people. He cares for Patrick like he cares for his own body. Like Patrick is a part of him, or maybe an extension of him. Something he wants to last as long as humanly possible.

“It’s—You haven’t. You . . .” The silence has stretched enough to border on uncomfortable and finally he settles for the simplest of truths. “You’re really beautiful, David.” 

David looks up sharply from his leg, raised and supported by his toes gripping the edge of the tub while he applies the body milk.

“Can I?” David asks, abandoning his leg and holding up the bottle. 

“Yeah,” Patrick says, stepping out of the tub and onto the mat. He feels relieved and a little nervous, like he’s stepping across a divide he’s only just noticed. Patrick is starting to realize he sends a pretty clear _back off_ about all of this. And David can probably read his _back off_ as well as he reads his _closer_ , and his _more_ , and his _please god David_.

“Turn around.” David tips his forehead toward Patrick, voice low and demanding, and Patrick can tell already that he’s going to like it.

David takes his time working the product into Patrick’s shoulders and down his back and over the curves of his arms, spreading it over his muscles. The bathroom is usually cold after a shower but Patrick doesn’t notice because his body is turning into molten liquid under David’s hands. Patrick uses a few of the skincare products they sell. He likes the sunscreen and whatever shampoo David keeps in the shower, the aftershave and sometimes the cologne. They’ve used the massage oil together, but not this. The body milk is a running joke. The joke is on Patrick now, because the feel of it against his skin is smooth and slick. Otherwordly.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this,” David murmurs, his lips grazing the lobe of Patrick’s right ear.

“How long?” Patrick asks while David ghosts his lips along the stretched muscles of his neck.

“Since the first time you asked me if you could drink it.” David reaches for the body milk on the vanity to pour a little more into his hands and starts to work it into Patrick’s chest from behind, fingers scratching lightly against the hairs scattered there.

“Okay but ‘milk?’”

“Do you want to get into this now?” David’s hands move lower, tantalizingly slow, the soft pads of his fingers circling against Patrick’s ribs, into the soft skin of his abdomen, into the fronts of his hips. His thumb grazes the tip of Patrick’s half-hard cock.

Patrick almost does want to get into it; he loves bickering with David almost as much as he loves caring for him. Half the time it’s one and the same. But David nudges him to turn around and he’s—well. The product name hardly seems important when David is rubbing it over his body like this. And anyway, he’s barely capable of a muffled and vague, “Mmm,” at the moment. 

When David kneels in front of him, oily hands working down one leg and then the other, Patrick presses his hand against the ugly green tile to steady himself, his breaths coming faster. David smiles up at him, mouth so close to where he wants it. “I think you like it,” he says, eyes darting at Patrick’s cock.

Patrick summons whatever snark has not been rubbed out of him by David’s hands. “It’s okay.“

“Mmm,” David grins, moving his mouth a fraction closer. “The best part about body _milk_ is that it absorbs quickly. So tonight, I’m going to put my hands all over you again in our bed, and I’ll already be able to feel the difference.”

“ _David._ ” Patrick gives in to the whining. He’s not proud but it gets his point across. David saves his ass for last, his hands rubbing slow circles as his fingers tease lower. His ass is going to be very soft at this rate, he thinks, or maybe he says it, because David snorts as he takes him in his mouth at last.

David’s hands stay there, large enough for his thumbs to knead into his hips as his fingers feather into the crease. His touch is whisper-soft at first, the way it always used to be before they got good at asking and demanding and begging and experimenting to show each other all the ways they wanted to be touched. But David knows what Patrick likes now, that he likes David demanding and bold, so his fingers show Patrick how well they know him at the same time his tongue begins in earnest, circling the head loosely held between his lips. Patrick swells quickly in the warmth of his mouth, hands sliding over David’s shoulders, slick from product, both of them coated with David’s attention. And still David gives him more and more and more.

David can make Patrick come quickly this way. He could take him in quick and deep, sucking as his tongue teases the extra-sensitive line on the underside of his cock. But David goes the same careful pace he’s been going all day, from the migraine to the body milk, reading each hitch of Patrick’s breath and jitter of his hips and low moan reverberating off the bathroom walls. Drawing it out, drawing him in, holding him steady.

Patrick’s toes curl against the tile in search of something to hold on to as time seems to slow and speed up all at once, David’s pace quickening around his cock as his hands prove they are just as good at caring for Patrick as his mouth is. “You’re so good,” Patrick murmurs. “So good.” 

Patrick traces the stretch of David’s jaw with his thumb and says it again. And again. He keeps telling David he’s good and beautiful and treasured and it’s true. It’s so true. It’s a relief to be so sure of the truth. David clutches his hips in his hands as Patrick comes and swallows with gentling suction, and Patrick tries to keep talking but it comes out in breathy fragments through the aftershocks. So he has to hope David understands how Patrick feels, being held close and handled like something precious.

David kisses the sensitive skin below his waist and then stands as Patrick gropes blindly for his cock. But David closes his hands around Patrick’s wrists before they can find it and shakes his head. His voice is hoarse but he manages: “Just for you this time.”

Patrick wants to protest. He doesn’t like imbalance, and anyway getting to put his hands on David is as much for him as for David. But David’s eyes don’t stop searching him, his thumbs tracing along the veins of Patrick’s wrists, and Patrick accepts finally with a nod.

They finish getting ready, catching each other’s eyes in the mirror, Patrick nudging David out of the way with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle to throw a cotton swab in the garbage, David fluttering his fingers over Patrick’s shoulders with a crooked smile as he reaches for pomade. Patrick wonders if David knows. If he can sense that Patrick is not done opening doors for him, that he wants to be more and better and stronger for him. That he’s learning that more and better and stronger looks a lot different than he’s always thought it did. Maybe it’s enough to tell him he liked it, to push this door open a little wider.

Patrick wraps the towel around his waist and squeezes David’s hip as he kisses him, his own taste still lingering in his mouth. “Thank you,” he says, too softly to carry any of his normal teasing edge. “That was a lot better than drinking it.”

* * *

The mail-order glasses stay in the box for three more days. When it’s time to mail them back, he doesn’t choose any of them. He doesn’t order a new group of five either, deleting the follow-up emails without opening them. 

Patrick knows he’s avoiding the situation. He doesn’t understand why this one choice feels so big and important. The thing is . . . he _knows_ who he is. He knows who he wants to be. He doesn’t know how to translate that into something simple like a pair of glasses. And he doesn’t know why he doesn’t just ask David to help him. David clearly doesn’t know either, although Patrick can see he’s trying not to push it. He’s trying.

“You’re making the face again,” David says one afternoon over his book of vendor notes on the couch in the back room of the store. 

“What face?” Patrick sits back self-consciously in his desk chair and compensates for the increased distance from his laptop by zooming in on the store’s quarterly budget breakdown, even though it means he has to scroll back and forth to view all the columns. 

“The ‘I refuse to make this easier by getting glasses’ face.”

“I think you’re confusing it with the ‘my husband let his best friend take a case of wine for free again and that money has to come from somewhere’ face.” David’s answering sneer is rendered ineffective by the guilty laugh that escapes it. 

“It was a business transaction,” David says. Patrick can feel the follow-up question hovering between them until he finally asks it. “Do you know what you’re looking for?” 

“Not really,” Patrick admits. “I know what I want to feel when I put them on, I think? I promise I’ll go back to the store when I’m in Elmdale for my dentist appointment next week.”

“Okay. It’s—I love you.” David bites his lip nervously. He so clearly wants to help and Patrick can see the way it’s warring with his earlier promise to let Patrick figure this out on his own. 

Patrick looks up again a few minutes later, after David has gone back to making arrangements for vendor pickups. He’s wearing one of Patrick’s favorite sweaters, fuzzy with horizontal white and black stripes. His hair is a little mussed from both of their hands, Patrick's from angling his head so he could kiss him more thoroughly after closing and David’s from the way he clenches his fist around it whenever he has to grapple with a calendar. 

“I love you, too.” They make that exchange a dozen times each day, and yet here in their quiet, private space, Patrick feels a bit of the mystery click into place. “David, I feel like myself when I’m with you. I mean, you have to know how you make me feel. And I guess what I want is for other people to see how you make me feel. Brave. And sexy. And smart. And—and proud.”

“Oh,” David says, his eyes batting in that startled expression that Patrick adores, when he’s managed to surprise him with even bolder-than-usual sincerity. “Well in that case you really should go get it taken care of, because this slouching-squint thing you’ve been doing lately is not your best look.”

“Noted.” Patrick says, and David tucks his smile back in and returns to his task.

“How did you decide that you’re—I mean that this is your look?” Patrick hears himself ask a few minutes later before his brain has a chance to tell his mouth to keep shut.

David’s mouth quirks up at one corner, the way it does when he can hear the question behind the question. 

“Well. It was a long and painful process full of trial and error. Mostly error. I think I learned early on that basic human interaction was not something I was good at. But the way I look . . . I could communicate that way. I could tell people exactly who I am, or hide everything about myself. Or both depending on who was listening.”

“Hmm.” Patrick ponders that. He supposes he’s been sending messages with the way he looks, although he hadn’t thought of it that way. Not as something he did intentionally. Strategically. If anything it’s the opposite, years of trying to camouflage his fear and confusion by conforming to whatever expectations were made clear to him.

“C’mere,” David says. Patrick does—he can’t not—and curls up next to David on the couch. “I’m about to let you into my most secret of locked folders. Oh, not that kind,” he amends when Patrick looks at him enthusiastically. “I’m going to let you look through it, but please just remember that you knew what you were getting when you married me.”

David hands Patrick his phone with what turns out to be unnecessary trepidation. They are all photos of David, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, or maybe—well his relationship to the other people in the photos is clearly not the point. The first is David in full candy-raver mode, although a rainbow-striped hat prevents any assessment of the haircut. He swipes to the right to be confronted with David with a thick black mustache, which is terrible and wrong and bizarrely hot. David with bleached hair, a fake yellowy-blond, looking pissed and over it and hot. David with his straightened ‘The Number’ hairdo and a large pink bow tie which would not be hot except it reminds Patrick of what they did after his Asbestos Fest performance which was really fucking hot. A few of what seems to be a neon phase, David in agent orange and highlighter yellow with hot pink nails. David in drag, a black low-cut sequined dress which is unfairly hot. David with a painted deranged clown face which is—no. Not hot. That’s just disturbing. 

Some of the others he’s seen before, mostly because Stevie has showed them to him over the years. David looking very overheated in head-to-toe camo and holding a rifle like it’s a parasol. David in the sun in front of the motel wearing too much bronzer. Tanner? Something. David in a black polo with stars around the collar, actual arms just on display. The next picture hangs in the office of Rose Apothecary: David and Alexis in power suits after a successful standoff with lawyers that earned them the seed money for the store. The day he first heard the story, Patrick asked David to tell it over and over as they fucked, and the photo still makes him hot. David and the Roses laughing in front of a gigantic family portrait of themselves, looking more tired and less sophisticated and so much happier and even more beautiful than the people on the canvas. The last photo is David in his baseball uniform and white sunglasses, which is definitely the hottest of them all.

“What is this folder?” Patrick asks once he’s reached the end.

“It’s just . . . recordkeeping I guess.”

“I took this picture. I love it,” Patrick says, handing him back the phone with the baseball picture still illuminating the screen. 

“Me too. I like them all for different reasons. I mean I don’t. If you show these to anyone I will leave you. But I made it when we moved here because I needed to remind myself that I’m not finished, I guess? Does that . . . make any sense?”

“Yeah.” Patrick swallows. It makes perfect sense.

* * *

Patrick parks in front of Elmdale Optix on Tuesday after his dentist appointment. The store is sandwiched between Creekview Roasters and Luca’s, the only barbershop within a hundred kilometers that David will let take a pair of scissors to his hair. Patrick peers through the storefront windows to see if Cindy is on duty today. David has helped lower the stakes a bit. If he ends up hating what he picks, there’s always next year. Or contacts. So this could be fun. This should be fun. This will be fun, he tells himself as he walks back into the little storefront with the glowing bespectacled walls. 

“Let me guess, you are in search of a pair of glasses today?” It’s the gray-haired associate from the other day. There are no other customers in the store. The associate is dressed in a soft cream cable-knit sweater—Patrick can see it’s high quality—and the breath he's been holding breaks free in a whoosh. Like maybe his body has developed an innate trust towards anyone in luxury knitwear.

“Are you saying this is not a hat store?” Patrick regrets it instantly but it’s too late.

“Sadly we had to discontinue the haberdashery side of the business.”

“That’s too bad. Well, luckily I’m also in need of glasses.”

“Oh, well in that case I’m Mark. Why don’t I give you a minute to look around and check in on you in a few.”

“Thanks, Mark” Patrick says with a nod and a smile that stays even after he turns toward the closest display. 

He and Cindy surely covered every possibility of neutral frame, which is most of the store. A bank of bolder frames anchors the back wall next to a small seating area, and Patrick slows his pace so he can take them in without being obvious about it. He doesn’t want to signal to Mark that this is what he’s looking for. The display features brighter colors and stronger shapes and Patrick thinks he would hate almost all of them. But he likes the _idea_ of them. It’s fun to imagine what it would be like to walk in and tell Mark the thick red hexagonal pair says Patrick all over it. He thinks about David’s locked folder and wonders if that will ever be him, flipping back to a guy in a boring button-up and jeans, just one iteration of an evolving version of himself.

It’s fun to think about, but Patrick knows he’s not there yet. He considers thanking Mark and leaving again. Maybe he’s getting sick. He’s got an illness that causes headaches and indecision and what he needs is not glasses but one of those specialists who solves medical mysteries.

“Were you in here the other day?” Mark asks, interrupting his escape plans.

“Oh. Yeah. A week or two ago. I feel kinda bad. I used up all of someone’s time, and I didn’t even buy them. And I’m just—honestly, I’m not sure I even know what I want.”

“Tell you what. I have a personal goal to find the perfect pair for every customer in five tries or less. Why don’t you sit down and if I don’t have it after that, I’ll give you a discount code for an online retailer.”

Patrick knows what Mark is doing, exuding confidence, putting a time limit on it, making it a challenge for him instead of Patrick. It’s Sales 101. Because it works. Because it’s working. Patrick will sit down in his chair and Mark probably won’t get it in five tries but Patrick will stay. Because they will both be invested in Mark finding the perfect pair.

He accepts the offer anyway. Maybe Mark really can do it in five tries.

“Have a seat.” Mark gestures toward the chair on the customer side of the frosted glass desk and sits down in the swiveling chair across from him, empty-handed. He tips his chair back and crosses his legs and cups his clasped hands around his knee, and Patrick feels the last of his apprehension slough off. “Tell me a little about yourself.”

The question makes Patrick’s palms surprisingly sweaty. But Patrick thinks he can start with the places where he feels the most like himself.

“I run a store with my husband. It’s a general store but, uh… also a specific store.” Patrick smiles at the memory, at the reality, and Mark returns it, like he’s been hoping to figure out what makes Patrick smile like this and he’s delighted they landed on it straight away. “I’ve lived in this area for a few years now. And uh, I dunno. I guess this is my first pair of glasses.”

“What do you do with your free time?” 

Mark seems to have figured out how to make deeply intrusive eye contact that is somehow also non-threatening. So Patrick tells him about the baseball team and community theater and games nights and the picnic-hikes he and David take together once a month and soon they’re just talking. Patrick is telling him more about the store and they commiserate about working retail during the holidays and regretting starting a customer interaction with a word like ‘haberdashery’ (“Not that I would know _anything_ about that,” Mark adds wrly). Patrick tells him about not coming out until he was thirty. He can see the moment Mark drops out of sales mode, right before he shares that he didn’t come out until he was in his forties. Looking at him now, several years later, Patrick tries to imagine a time when didn’t feel like he could be this effortlessly, gorgeously queer. 

“Coming out when I did, I had as much to unlearn about myself as I had to learn,” Mark says, peering at Patrick thoughtfully. “But the main thing I’ve learned is to be patient with myself.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees. He is still learning that, too. 

“Anyway, I think I have some ideas, but since you’ve been shopping once already, why don’t you tell me what you didn’t like about the pairs you tried on last time.”

Patrick tries to consider it. They have a nice rapport going and he’s not sure he wants to ruin that by admitting he maybe, quite possibly is mid-existential crisis. “I have no idea. I just kept thinking they were boring. But it’s not like . . . I mean I don’t want like cat-eyes or anything.”

“The only statement you want to make is that you know who you are.” It’s not a question. Mark says it levelly, voice steady like he’s known Patrick for ten years instead of ten minutes.

“Something like that. Yeah.” It’s exactly that and Patrick wants to cry and this is ridiculous. Because it’s just a pair of glasses. That line is probably in Mark’s associate handbook. And regardless what Patrick picks, he’ll probably replace them in year. But he desperately wants that now, to look like he knows who he is.

“Okay.” Mark taps his fingers against the desk and stands, taking one of the felt-lined wood trays with him. Patrick tries not to look at the pairs he pulls until he comes back but when he sees the choices in the tray, he’s not optimistic.

They don’t work, but Mark gets another chance, which was the ploy all along. To his credit, the sixth pair has potential. Mark leans in to situate the frames so they are straight. When he sits back, Patrick catches him suppressing a smile. “Okay, I’m dying to know what you think of these.” 

Patrick glances at the mirror and tries to stay neutral. Still, he finds himself blushing a little. It feels a bit like they are on opposite sides of the desk trying not to stand up and cheer and high five. The frames are light taupe with a matte finish, squarish with darker temples. Patrick never would have chosen them. They stand out without having anything significantly noteworthy about them. And he looks . . . like someone who is willing to have you take a second look at them. Someone who is proud of who he is, even if who he is hasn’t changed.

“Yeah,” is all he says. And then nods and blinks a few times so he doesn’t cry behind his new glasses.

* * *

The frames have to get sent to a lab so he doesn’t get them back for a few days. He makes an appointment at the barber next door for a very past-due haircut the day he’s scheduled to pick them up. It’s a nice place. Luca, one of the co-owners does a straight blade shave and a full shampoo. Then she examines the ends of his hair closely and makes flattering small talk about how unfair it is that he and his husband both have such good hair. So he tells her about how he used to use Gel Time Dandruff Shampoo and David had to point out that it specifically says in very fine print _not for use on human hair_.

“Which should have clued me in about the glasses I guess,” he says. 

It occurs to Patrick that David probably told her this story, but she laughs anyway and tells him about how she once resorted to replacing the product in the bottle of her girlfriend’s shampoo.

“Which should have clued me in about where that relationship was headed,” she says, and Patrick grins with her in the mirror. “Anyway now I run this place with my partner Ismail and we’ve fought about plenty of things over the years but never the shampoo.”

“Which reminds me, I’m supposed to pitch you on carrying our line,” Patrick says. 

“Yes! David left us with a few bottles to try last time he was in. We love it. We would love to work something out when our contract with our current supplier runs out next month.”

“Oh, great. Can you tell him we had a long negotiation and that I sold you against all odds?”

“That sounds like something he would say,” she says with a giggle. “Which reminds me, he told me to tell you that yes, he did pay for the bottles he gave us with his own money. Does he not know what a write-off is?”

Patrick laughs and shakes his head and tries not to give his TED Talk on about how deeply in love with his husband he is. “He pretends to know less than he does because he knows I like to feel needed.” 

“Yes, he said that, too,” she says with a wink as she snaps the nylon cape around his neck.

It’s an odd feeling, meeting someone who knows him only from the stories David has told of him, he thinks as she sets up the shears and comb and clippers on a towel. It’s like meeting someone who only knows the best parts of him and takes it on faith that that’s most of him. And maybe it is. 

He’s planning to get his normal cut, the one he’s been getting since his first internship during university. When he goes to Janine’s in Schitt’s Creek, she doesn’t even ask anymore. She just turns on the clippers and he’s done in fifteen minutes, looking like Patrick. 

Luca clips back her thick fall of dark hair, revealing dyed deep purple layers under the black. She uses one of her thick-soled boots to pump the chair higher so she’s level with his neck. She’s stunning and compact and carries herself like she’s perpetually ready to fight off someone twice her size. All Patrick really knows about her is that she’s queer and she owns a business with her partner and David trusts her. It’s enough.

Luca is fussing a bit with the comb and commenting on the way his hair is starting just barely to curl and then he’s suggesting, hands gripping the arms of the chair under the black nylon cloak, that maybe she should just clean up the edges and shorten the sides a little and leave the top longer. Because maybe he doesn’t have to figure this all out. Maybe he can just decide what it means to look like Patrick. And he kind of likes the way it looks now.

It’s not just the way David reaches his hands into his hair when they fuck lately, or the way David tugs on it just enough to draw Patrick out of his head when they’re talking on the porch at night, or the way David washes it more often when they shower together, working the product down to his scalp with the same kind of care he uses on his own hair. It’s also the way Patrick stumbles into the bathroom in the morning and still does a double-take. That brief moment of confusion with how different it looks, hair long enough to noticeably stick up and out and forward from sleep, followed by the vaguely exciting thrill of change he chose himself.

When Luca finishes, his hair doesn’t look a lot different from when he came in, just tidier and a little more . . . styled? That’s probably the word. In any case, he leaves her a nice tip and sets up his next visit with a little extra time to go over the contract, which he promises to email her. 

When he goes next door, Mark is helping a customer but offers him a friendly wave and a, “Good to see you again.” 

He gets a do-over with Cindy, who adjusts the frames so they sit straight and fit around his ears—although she doesn’t seem to remember him so maybe his first trip was not as calamitous for her as it was for Patrick. 

When he walks into the store two hours before closing, “Oh—Oh my goddd!” is the gratifyingly dumbstruck response of his husband. Patrick doesn’t recognize the customers David is helping, but they’ve clearly spent enough time with David’s expressiveness to not be shocked by his outburst.

Patrick feels good. He feels good a lot now, in this life he’s built, but this is a different kind of good. A little rush of adrenaline, maybe, or just . . . like he’s waking up from a wonderful dream to discover it is reality. He enjoys David’s slack-jawed expression as he breezes into the store and squeezes David’s arm in greeting and nods a quick hello to the customers before he goes in the back to put away the office supplies he picked up earlier in the day. 

And then he goes out to help with customers, like it’s a normal day. 

It doesn’t feel like a normal day. He feels buoyant, lighter than he has in a long time. He catches David’s eye as Patrick explains the merits of body milk to a group from out of town, and catches David shaking his head as he rings up a bottle for each of them. The regular Tuesday book club contingent comes in after their meeting at the senior center. They are still arguing about the book when Carol spots him and shushes the rest. They fawn over him almost as much as they normally fawn over Ted, talking without a filter about his looks in a way that makes Patrick blush. David rescues him, agreeing that yes, his husband is dashing—“I have great taste, thanks so much.”—and asks if he can help them find anything. David rolls his eyes over his shoulder as he follows them over to the bath salts and Patrick feels _good_ in his soul. It feels good to be seen anew by people who see him every week. To allow himself to take up a little more space.

When they are briefly down to one customer in search of one of their bullet journals, David joins Patrick behind the cash and pretends there is not enough room to squeeze into the back without pushing against Patrick’s hips. He pulls the same move on the way back and utters a drawn-out, “Damn,” on his way past.

It’s almost a growl and it makes Patrick want to close the store an hour early and drag David into the back room like the old days, when they made up for the lack of privacy with a lot of creativity and enthusiasm.

When the store empties ten minutes before closing David turns the sign and locks the door.

“Oh, are we closing early?” Patrick teases as David comes back to join him behind the cash.

“You said, ‘picking up glasses.’” David points a finger at him, close enough to bite, so Patrick does.

“Which I did.”

“Haircut.”

“I told you I was stopping there too.” Patrick is trying not to laugh, but it’s difficult.

“This shirt?” Patrick looks down at the black button-up he’s wearing.

“Next in the rotation,” he says with a shrug, as if he doesn’t know it’s David’s favorite.

“You look—” David can’t seem to finish a sentence. His eyes can’t settle, and his hands can’t decide if they need to be moving through the air to burn off his extra energy or if they should just press all of it into Patrick’s shoulders and chest and hips. He’s doing some of both as he backs Patrick against the counter. “Fuck. You’re so fucking—You should have warned me.”

“I did though,” Patrick says. “This morning. You made me an egg and I made you toast and I said—” 

“You didn’t say—God, maybe we should go home so I can do this properly.”

“Do what?” Patrick asks innocently.

“Everything I can think of, baby,” David says, which is how Patrick knows it’s really serious. He leans in, kissing Patrick’s neck, his teeth scraping the exposed skin at the edge of his collar as the weight of him pins Patrick to the counter. 

“I’ll balance the drawer,” Patrick says, squeezing the nape of David’s neck. “I’m faster at it.”

David has a game face—not that Patrick will ever call it that out loud—and this is the most determined he’s ever seen it. Patrick resists the urge to stack their hands and yell, “Go team!” But just barely.

Patrick is almost finished with the till when the music turns off and he looks up to see David setting his phone back on the table and perching his chin over his hand on the top of the sweeper. Watching him.

“You look . . .” David says.

“I know,” Patrick says. He’s not sure what’s gotten into him but he likes it. It’s not a line, but it works like one, David’s eyes going wide and dark as he sucks in a sharp breath. 

“People noticed you today. I liked that,” he says. He takes an unsteady breath. “I like people seeing what I see.”

“Me too,” Patrick says. “You were the first person who really saw me.”

“Yeah.” David’s answer is low and guttural, and he’s too far away with the counter between them. Patrick makes the trip around, taking the broom and leaning it up against the cash, then taking David’s face in his hands. 

“I don’t think I’m finished figuring all of this out yet.” Patrick hears the words drop without fear, disappearing somewhere in the deep bottomlessness that they offered each other with marriage.

“I know,” David whispers, pressing his lips to his temple above the glasses as he pulls him closer. “This is one fucking start, Patrick.”

* * *

They don’t have a routine for getting out of clothes and into bed. Sometimes David undresses Patrick one slow unbutton at a time while Patrick eases David’s sweater carefully over his head and folds it into a tidy square. Sometimes they each peel out of their clothes as fast as possible, David only pausing long enough to ensure no permanent damage is done, before they’re scrambling naked onto the bed. Very rarely, David doesn’t care what happens to his clothes at all, the urgency overtaking them as the clothes pile up on the floor, both of them reaching to remove whatever is closest. Sometimes the clothes don’t come off at all, in the back room at the store, in the car, in the broom closet of their wedding venue, the contrasts of textures and layers knitting into the experience. 

Tonight, David just dances his hands along Patrick’s shoulders as he kisses him and steps back. “Will you take your clothes off for me?” he asks.

Patrick always feels sexy with David. This, what they do in their bedroom, was never in doubt. But he feels a little bolder anyway, undoing the buttons. He throws in a little David shimmy which earns him a wide grin with a bite of lower lip.

Patrick goes to remove the glasses but David stops him.

“Those stay.” 

Patrick might have saved himself a lot of agony by letting David help pick them, but he’s glad he didn’t now. It’s nice to make an aesthetic choice that turns David bossy with longing for him. Like he’s cracked a code.

Patrick drops his hands and reaches for David’s clothes, but he’s already peeling them off.

“On the bed,” David says, handing him the lube. And then, “Please.”

Patrick settles back against the headboard, knees up and legs spread just enough to be on display, enjoying the way that slows David down a little at the sight. Finally he settles in near the middle of the bed facing him. 

“I want to watch you come,” David says. Patrick has been half-hard since they left the store and his hand reaches reflexively for his cock. “Yes like that. Come like that.”

Patrick pours a little lube into his hand as David’s palms travel up Patrick’s calves and over his knees and down his thighs, stirring up a vortex inside him. If David got any closer he couldn’t watch, so he just keeps stroking Patrick’s legs while Patrick strokes himself hard. 

“Fuck Patrick. Look at you.” He does lean forward then to kiss Patrick, mouth and hands blistering where he makes contact before he sits back again. Patrick feels superhuman, David watching all of him like this, getting hot and hard for him, turned on by his body, by his choices, by his cocky grin and his steady gaze. 

With the glasses, David looks different too. The soft fuzz on his chest is sharper. The tufts of his hair are more distinct, undone by Patrick’s hands in the store before they left and in car when they parked in the garage and in the entry when they got home. He can see the freckles on his shoulders and the grain of his stubble and the faintest arc of white across David’s thumbnail where it presses into Patrick’s inner thigh and the fading yellow of the marks Patrick left on his shoulder two days ago. The thick vein along his cock and the glistening drop of precome already leaking from it. The lines on the sides of David’s mouth are threatening to dimple until they finally do and Patrick smiles back at him, exhilarated at being able to see all of him, so much of him, all at once. “You want it like this?” Patrick asks, nearly gasps, teasing the head as he twists his hand, exactly how they both know he loves it. 

“Yeah, I want this. I love all the ways you make yourself feel good, Patrick,” David says and then he just keeps going. “I love being in between these thick thighs. And this soft skin above your hips—” He leans in, his mouth wet now and greedy against Patrick’s while he squeezes the skin in question. “—and how you want me to hold you there when I fuck you so I can go deeper. I love how your hair curls around my fingers when you’re sucking me off, or when you’re sleeping with your head on my chest. And the way your nipples aren’t that sensitive so you make me work for it. And the way your ass is so sensitive I barely have to touch anything else to make you come.” 

That’s true, so Patrick reaches down and toys with his hole, grinning at the way David’s eyes follow his fingertip as it circles and pushes in. David’s fingers twitch against his legs like they want to follow it. 

“Yes, _fuck_. So good for me. I love the way your arms seem like they are always in tension. And your shoulders. And your hands. I’ve never met someone who can use their hands together like you do. Yeah just like that,” he says as Patrick works his finger in his hole along with his stroking hand. Patrick is close. He’s so close and David’s hands are moving faster on his legs with each stroke, kneading into the skin of his inner thighs driving Patrick faster and closer and deeper.

“David. David can I—” Patrick loses the sentence when David’s eyes find his again, deep black and sure. 

“I love it when you let me see you like this, so proud and sure of yourself,” he says. Patrick hears his answering moan—it’s all he can manage how. “Will you come for me? Let me see you come, baby.” Patrick couldn’t stop it if he wanted to now, David turning him inside-out with his all-knowing gaze. He comes hard, hot and spurting, and David reaches for him and strokes him as he comes and comes. David holds Patrick’s eyes until Patrick can’t keep them open anymore, until he has to give in to the pleasure tearing through him.

“Just like this, honey,” David murmurs against his cheeks as he kisses them. “I love you just like this.”

Patrick works his hands between them as David kisses him. It doesn’t take much for David’s come to join the mess on their chests but he tries to make it good for him, to show him how grateful he is that David made it safe to change, that he makes it safe to keep changing.

Once they gather the wherewithal to clean up, Patrick wipes a sticky spot off of David’s cheek and kisses it, his lips still tender from stubble and teeth. “Thank you for letting me figure this out on my own.” 

David reaches for the glasses, which will need a more dedicated cleaning in the sink, and slowly slides them off. 

“You’re really beautiful,” he says, and his mouth quivers at the corners the way it always does when he’s about to say something overwhelmingly tender. “And I do like your body, obviously, but it’s not—It’s not what makes you beautiful.”

“I know,” Patrick says, because he knows exactly what he means.

* * *

It’s a normal Monday so far. It started in what David knows is one of Patrick’s favorite ways, David fingering him awake and hard and open. He fucked him and murmured snippets of nothings with slow thrusts until Patrick could verbalize little more than a begging whine. 

After, David left Patrick in bed with a long, smug kiss. Patrick fell back asleep while David went for a brunch date with Stevie, but he eventually made it to the shower. Now he’s finishing getting ready in front of the mirror, rubbing a small dollop of moisturizer into his forehead and cheeks with his ring finger. He works just a little of the styling cream into his hair and finger combs through it before he slides on his glasses. The hair and the glasses and the skincare routine and the more closely-trimmed stubble don’t really register as different anymore. They’re just . . . him. Just him now. But it still feels different, because he chose it differently.

It’s almost time for another eye exam, maybe a new pair of glasses. Maybe he’ll ask Mark to help him pick one from the back wall with the bright colors and unusual shapes. Just to try while he’s there. 

When he emerges from the bathroom, David is back. He pauses mid-untying his shoe. 

“Is that new?” he asks. Patrick looks down at the t-shirt with light and dark blue color-blocking. It’s organic cotton and really soft, which is why he bought it despite being more fitted than he normally goes for. He felt a little silly buying _another_ blue shirt, but he really likes blue. And he looks good in blue. So he bought it. The color-blocking hits his chest just right, he thinks. Makes his shoulders look really good. David seems to think so too, if his slack jaw is any indication.

“I got it when I was in Thornbridge at that tax seminar. There’s a store downtown there I think you’d really like.”

David doesn’t really register that. He just stands, open and quiet and unusually still.

“I was going to say I hardly recognize you anymore but that’s—That’s not it. You’re—” David’s breath hitches and his hands gesture feebly like they can convey what his words can’t.

“Hey, hey,” Patrick says, standing up and catching his face. He tips their heads together, brushing his lips against David’s forehead and his nose and his mouth. David lays his hands over Patrick’s on his cheeks, his fingers settling into the gaps until Patrick squeezes them between his own and breathes. They breathe together, the private skin between their fingers holding this quiet love as long as possible. “Hey,” Patrick whispers. 

“Hi.” David’s eyes tip upward and he blinks them hard and breathes in through his nose. “You look like you feel really good.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, dropping the whisper because it’s not a secret anymore. “I bought you something too, at the store.”

“Oh?” David asks, voice pitching high and wary. “You bought us clothes at the same store?”

“I know. Will you try it? It just . . . made me think of you.” 

David’s worry lines straighten and soften at that, and he nods. 

Patrick takes the box from his bottom dresser drawer and hands it to David. He’s surprised he’s not more nervous. The boutique in Thornbridge touted a black-and-white theme and he thought . . . maybe. He’s bought David jewelry and lingerie but not . . . not clothing other people would see. He liked the idea that it might be visible, the ways they’re learning to belong to each other.

“No one except my mother has ever bought me clothing before. Alexis doesn’t even buy me clothing.” 

David hasn’t opened the box. It’s just sitting in his lap. There was a time Patrick probably would have apologized preemptively just in case but. Not now. He’s worked hard to unlearn the patterns of self-doubt that were ingrained from too many years of not understanding he was gay, and reinforced by hindsight when he started to understand who he is. It’s getting easier to trust himself, and more than anything, to trust that he knows David Rose. So he bought the sweater. 

“Open it. I think you’ll like it,” he prods.

David offers one of his pleased, soft smiles as he leans in to kiss Patrick, thumb rubbing casually against Patrick’s exposed bicep. “Thank you.” 

Part of Patrick wonders if he’s being thanked before David sees the sweater in case he can’t muster a genuine thank you afterwards, but he decides to accept it anyway. David opens the box and folds back the tissue and holds up the sweater. It’s white at the waist, transitioning through a stepped gradient to black at the shoulders and neck. 

“Mohair,” David says, feeling the seams along the sleeves.

“Yeah. Organic. It’s really soft.”

“Yeah,” David says. His eyes fill the way they do so often now, his gorgeous heart allowed to pump out whatever emotion he’s feeling. “It’s—yeah.”

“I know it’s not a big name designer. But it is locally made and locally sourced and . . .” Patrick’s not really sure what his point is. 

“Thank you,” David says again, and this time he really means it.

“I know your look is important to you. And you’re—” 

“My look _is_ important to me,” David agrees. And then he pulls off the Neil Barrett sweater he spent months hounding online consignment sites for and unloops the thin recycled-paper tag on the new sweater before guiding it carefully over his head.

“It looks really good on—” Patrick doesn’t get to finish before David is kissing him hard, arms flung around his neck as Patrick’s hands take in the softness of the mohair over David’s body. When he pulls away, David looks at him with eyes that are loaded with love, intense and true.

Patrick has learned a lot with David about who he is. About being gay. About feeling safe. About giving love. About being known. The past year he’s realized this is something they can do together now, give each other boundless vulnerable space to change and choose and grow. He’s looking forward to whatever comes next.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're at all familiar with my obsessive approach to writing for fun, you won't be surprised to find out I used an app to try a lot of glasses on Patrick. And Patrick's frustration seems to be warranted. It was tough to find a pair that looked good. Fittingly, he looks pretty good in Reid frames from SALT. Although the final pair he picked in this story is a combination of a color and shape from two different brands. Because fiction.
> 
> The writing channel at the Rosebudd is the best writing resource ever. They provided some great lines, lots of encouragement, answers to fussy grammar questions, and most importantly, commiseration. 
> 
> It’s officially been 6 months since I posted my first fic. I’ve written 200,000 words since then, which explains why my dishes are always dirty. But I’ve really appreciated all of you who have read and commented along the way. Thank you thank you!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] He Sees You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23868583) by [Amanita_Fierce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanita_Fierce/pseuds/Amanita_Fierce)




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